


One Full Moon

by writtenbykat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Jily Oneshot, Lily Evans/James Potter - Freeform, jily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writtenbykat/pseuds/writtenbykat
Summary: James and Sirius return from a rough full moon, desperately needing assistance but unwilling to go to the hospital wing. Who do they turn to? Lily Evans, of course.One-shot.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	One Full Moon

Lily sighed and rubbed her eyes, closing her transfiguration book. She knew she was too exhausted to finish McGonagall’s essay tonight– it would simply have to wait until tomorrow. Just as she finished packing her bag, she heard the portrait hole opening behind her. Lily let out another exasperated sigh, knowing she would have to deal with whoever it was, being Head Girl and all.

It was no surprise at all to see Potter and Black in the doorway, but as she looked closer she noticed that Black’s arm wasn’t looped around Potter’s shoulders in a joyful expression of comraderie, but out of pure necessity. Potter stumbled through the portrait hole, supporting most of Black’s weight on his shoulders.

Lily gasped, suddenly springing into action. She rushed forward to help take some of Black’s weight and half drag, half carry him to the nearest couch. “What- what happened to the two of you?” Lily questioned– they looked significantly worse than she had first noticed, both sporting gashes down their torsos that were still leaking blood, and more cuts and wounds than she could count.

“Please. Don’t,” James said simply. Now that Sirius had been settled onto the couch, he too looked as if he would collapse to the floor. Maybe that was what brought Lily closer to him– close enough that when his knees did in fact give out, she was there. She staggered under his unexpected weight, and sank to the floor with his head in her lap.

“James,” Lily said, shaking his shoulder, “James!”, this time with more force.

His eyes fluttered back open slightly, as if even that effort was taxing, “Sirius. He's worse off. Help Sirius first,” he told Lily.

“You have to tell me what happened!” she burst out, “I can’t treat what I don’t understand! No… No. We need to get you to the hospital wing, to Madam Pomfrey.”

“NO!” James exclaimed, grasping her hand with more strength than she had thought he could muster, “No hospital wing.”

His eyes burned with an intensity Lily had never seen before, so she nodded mutely, giving his hand a gentle squeeze to show she understood. At her acceptance, James released her hand, whispering weakly “Sirius”. Lily stood and turned to where Sirius lay splayed on the couch of the common room.

Lily grabbed her wand, using it to open his shirt to run diagnostic spells, as well as confirming with her own eyes what she had seen as they walked in. From his left shoulder to his opposite hip ran four gaping wounds. Her diagnostic spells revealed similar cuts along his legs and bite marks as well. She quickly set to casting silent incantations to mend the cuts, which closed in jagged, puckered looking scars. She moved quickly and thoroughly, until she was sure he would be fine. She cast several more pain relieving charms before turning to where James lay on the carpet.

Lily repeated the same process as she had used on Sirius, casting diagnostic spells and removing his outer garments, to find what deep down she had expected– he’d lied. While the gashes Sirius had sported were deep, James’ were ten times worse. Even as she tended to his wounds, Lily had to turn away to be sick at the sight of a cut so deep she could see bone.

Frustrated tears formed in her eyes and she swiped them away angrily. Tears would do her no good right now. Lily fought to set her emotions aside as she worked methodically on casting healing charms on cuts that just didn’t seem to want to close. By the time she was done and had patched him up the best she could, Lily slumped against the side of the couch- exhausted.

She didn’t know how long she sat there for, trying to come to terms with everything that had happened, everything she still didn’t know, and how truly terrified she had been that she might lose one of them that night. The panic and she had felt in those moments, all the fear she had pushed aside in the moment washed over her in a wave of emotion.

Lily let out a strangled sob– one of fear, anxiety, and overall– relief. Just pure relief that they were okay. Even in the short time they had become friends, Lily could not bear the thought of losing either one of them- of a world without the constant laughter and joy of Sirius Black and James Potter. She heaved another sob, when she felt a comforting hand sliding down the side of her head.Lily looked up to see Sirius had come to.

“Lily, love,” he whispered weakly.

Lily let out a sob of relief, surging forward to pull him into an embrace. Sirius winced at the sudden action, but quickly brought his uninjured arm up to hold her and run his hand down her hair in a soothing motion. As she pulled back she saw a severity to his face she hadn’t seen before.

“Prongs- James,” he stammered, “Where is James?”.

“Here,” came a weak response from the carpeted floor of the common room. Both Lily and Sirius shot up to the source of the sound, the latter wincing greatly behind Lily’s turned back. James’ face looked pale and drawn, but he was awake and talking she assured herself.

The feeling of relief was even more overwhelming than before, taking Lily by surprise. She found herself lost for words and simply reached out to grab his hand, clutching it tightly.

“We need to get the two of you upstairs,” she told them, “I assume there is a reason you didn’t go straight to the hospital wing, and I am also assuming that for that same reason you don’t want to be laying bloody in the common room come morning. The two exchanged a look and silently nodded at her.

Lily gave one firm nod in response, looking over to Sirius, “Can you walk?” she asked him. He paused before sitting up, with her help, then making his way to his feet. Lily gave another nod, now looking to James. He had already begun an attempt at sitting upright, his forehead beaded in perspiration and blood flowering across his shirt from his newly healed cuts.

“James-”  
“Prongs-”

Lily and Sirius had begun at the same time to discourage him, at the visible toll the action had on him. James started to protest, but was stopped by a staying hand from Lily pushing him back down onto the carpet.

“Don’t,” she insisted firmly. Together Lily and Sirius helped James to his feet, slinging an arm around each of their shoulders, supporting his weight. Lily took the brunt of it as Sirius was almost as bad as James, and she took a staggering step towards the boys’ dormitories.

The trio climbed the stairs slowly and by the time they’d reached the seventh year boys’ dormitory, each of the three was beyond exhausted from the climb. James had passed out by the fifth year boys’ door, and Sirius looked not far behind him. Lily knew she would not be able to carry James on her own, let alone have to come back and do the same for Sirius.

She expressed this to Sirius and they both stepped onto the landing, their backs against the wall, using it for support, and slid to the floor. Sirius let out a relieved sigh, and immediately let his eyes slide closed.

While they rested Lily found that she could not get her mind to take a break, same as her body. Sirius looked close to truly unconscious but Lily knew it would do them no good to be discovered passed out on the fifth years’ landing.

As she fretted on what to do, Sirius opened one eye, whispering “It’s not his fault you know.”

“What’s not?” Lily asked, even though she already knew his answer.

“This. Everything,” Sirius replied. “As bad off as this idiot is, I can guarantee that his main worry even now is that you will think that all of this is somehow his fault and blame him.” He sighed, “He’d explain everything to you if he could but it’s really not his secret to share.”

“I know,” Lily whispered back. She opened her mouth to say more, but found that she could not put into words what had changed between them in the last year. Sirius watched her struggle for the words to say, a million contradicting emotions flitting across her face in seconds. Eventually he heard Lily let out a sigh, seemingly just accepting that she, for once, did not know what to say.

He smiled to himself before painfully hauling himself to his feet, “Alright,” he said, offering a hand up, “Two more floors and we’re home free.”

They set off, climbing the two remaining floors of stairs. When they finally reached their door, Lily thought she might cry tears of joy– after, of course, promptly passing out for a good twelve hours. Sirius opened the door and led them into the room.

He helped Lily lay James down gently on his bed and turned to her, “Thank you,” he said simply, pressing a kiss to her cheek before turning to his own four poster, stripping out of his bloody garments, and passing out on top of the coverlet. Lily smiled briefly to herself, before walking over to pull off his shoes, cast a silent cleaning spell over him, and close the curtains of his four-poster, casting a silencing charm on them as she did.

Now she turned to James, still unconscious on his four-poster. She repeated the same process on James, replacing his bloody and ruined garments with clean items she found at the top of his trunk. As she cast her cleansing charm over him, she began to worry again. She had taken him regaining consciousness as a good sign, but really he had only been conscious for a handful of minutes before passing out again.

She worried he wasn’t in the clear yet. She worried as she pointed her wand at his bed sheets, effectively tucking him in. She worried as she cast a cleansing charm over her own clothing, sodden with the boys’ blood. She worried as she returned to the common room to cast even more cleansing spells, vanish the blood stained towels, and erase all evidence of their presence there tonight. She worried so much that she found herself turning away from the girls’ dormitory stairs to walk up to the seventh year boys’.

She worried, so she conjured a chair next to James’ bed, sitting next to him with his hand firmly grasped in hers. And since she worried so, she silently promised herself that she would sit awake all night if she had to, she couldn’t rest until she saw with her own eyes that he was okay. She worried, but she was exhausted.

An hour into her self-imposed vigil she found herself nodding off. She jerked herself back upright so suddenly, pulling James’ hand she had forgotten she clasped in hers. The moment seemed to pull him into consciousness enough for his eyes to crack open, and catch her terrified expression. As it registered with him exactly who sat at his bedside, his eyes widened even further.

“Evans,” he said, his voice a raspy whisper.

“Potter,” she stated back to him, relief flooding through her.

“What- what are you doing?” he asked, though not too upset at having woken up to his hand in hers.

“I- You- You were- And Sirius was - I didn’t- You weren’t-” she started several sentences, finishing none of them. “I was worried,” she settled on finally, “You didn’t wake back up.”  
The fond smile that had started on his lips died suddenly when her face crumpled and she began to cry now in earnest. Lily spoke several times, or attempted to– none of her sentences coherent and every one of them disrupted by sobs.

“Lil-” he whispered, and she brought her teary eyes to meet his. “Lily. It’s okay. I’m okay. We’re okay.” He told her, “Thanks to you.”

She drew in another shuddering breath, looking away from the open adoration in his eyes.  
James felt his eyelids growing heavier, as exhaustion overtook him once again. “Thank you,” he told her simply, giving the hand he still held a tight squeeze. Lily lifted her eyes to meet his and returned the gesture, settling against the back of the chair.

An hour or two later James woke to find Lily slumped over in her chair, her head resting on his bed next to his. He felt the warmth of her breath against the side of his face. “Lil,” he whispered, “Lily.”

The sound of her name whispered in her ear woke her and she lifted her head. She turned to look at James’ face, suddenly much closer than it had been before.

He saw her start to apologize and sit back up in the chair she’d conjured. He stopped her apologies and protests with a simple tug on her hand to bring her closer to him.

She stood from her chair. “Are you sure?” she asked, her hand never leaving his as she moved from her chair to perch on the edge of the bed.

“Absolutely” James assured her.

Lily seemed to try to find reasons to turn him down, and she would the next day blame it on the sheer overwhelming nature of that night and the lack of sleep, but she rose and crawled into bed next to him.

James shifted to make room for her and when she joined him he pulled her against his side, letting her use his arm as a pillow. He marveled at how perfectly they fit together, but held himself back from saying anything that would scare her off. He opted instead for letting out a contented sigh and pulling her ever closer to his body. And it could have been the exhaustion playing tricks on his mind, but he could have sworn he heard her as well.

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at writing Jily.


End file.
